


and then, and then

by amaranthinecanicular



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, safehouse fic post eye-pocalypse, vague spoilers for season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:54:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26717821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaranthinecanicular/pseuds/amaranthinecanicular
Summary: After the world ended, and then after it didn’t, the last thing Martin expected was to be alive. Not much further down on the list was to find the cottage still standing.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 32
Kudos: 124





	and then, and then

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings at the end.

When Jon enters the room, Martin puts down his book.

“There you are,” he says, and smiles. He lifts a hand to reach out, and then lowers it. Feels himself flush. Twiddles his thumbs in his lap.

“Here I am.” Jon’s eyes are warm—the place where his eyes should be. They crinkle in the corners, where the scars are, and he maneuvers onto the couch, arranging each of his limbs with careful precision. The sight makes Martin’s heart ache. 

Jon makes an approximate turn in Martin’s direction. “Tell me what you did today?” he says, and Martin still half expects the pressure of compulsion behind his eyes. It doesn’t come. 

Martin tells him. He went down to the village for groceries. Said hello to Jon’s favorite cat. On the walk home he saw a fluffy cow, and had to stop to let a flock of geese cross the road. The milk was delivered while he was out, in those cool old-fashioned glass bottles, remember? He spent some time tidying up, dusting, cleaning the flue. He’s thinking of taking up bird watching.

“Bird watching,” Jon snorts. “Of course. Has there ever been a more Martin Blackwood pastime?”

“Oh please,” Martin snips back, tickled by how _natural_ it is, how familiar and wonderful, “birdwatching is right up your alley. It’s all about knowing, and discovering, and cataloging…”

“I think I’ve had enough _knowing_ for a lifetime, thank you.”

 _“Jonathan Sims._ It’s going to take more than the apocalypse to convince me that you could be satisfied without the pursuit of knowledge.”

Jon does that endearing thing where he huffs and scowls to hide a grin. Then he huffs and scowls to hide a wince. Martin leans forward, almost rests a hand on his shoulder. 

“Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Jon says, waving him off. “Did you call Basira?” 

“Not today. I meant to, but—afternoon got away from me, I suppose.” He fiddles with the book beside him. Pushes it away. Returns his hands to his lap. Wishes he was holding Jon’s hand instead.

Jon seems to hear something in the silence. “Are _you_ alright?”

The tenderness in his voice. His hands, almost reaching. Heat rises to Martin’s eyes. 

“I’m alright,” he says, and he laughs, because it’s finally true. “We’re together. Everything’s alright.”

After the world ended, and then after it didn’t, the last thing Martin expected was to be alive. Not much further down on the list was to find the cottage still standing. 

Barely standing, granted. All the windows were blown out. The door was gone. The roof was sagging sadly in the middle, and the whole place had been flooded with water, and darker things. It seemed to shiver in even the lightest breeze. But at the foundations, Daisy’s safehouse was solid. Whatever nightmare had possessed it was gone now, and though the cottage shuddered and shook, it still stood. 

“Well then.” Jon gave it a good long glare and then he rolled up the sleeves of Martin’s jumper. He held out his hand. “Shall we?”

The sight of him there, against the sky and stone. The spark in his eyes. All his scars. He saved the world, defeated his own patron. He barely survived. And yet there he stood, sleepless and half starved, ready to tackle the mundane and monumental task of renovations. Martin realized all at once that they were both alive, and that they were here, together.

He laughed, maybe a little hysterically, and he grabbed Jon’s hand and reeled him in. They laughed and cried against each other’s mouths.

Jon is in the kitchen. Martin puts aside his book and sets to scrubbing the dishes.

“Hey there. I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Jon says, perhaps a little flustered, but less than he once was. He stands by the counter, crosses his arms, tilts his head to listen to the open faucet. “Chores. Can’t say I missed that.”

“You could always offer to help,” Martin sing songs.

“And insult you with the insincerity? I respect you too much for that.” 

Martin snickers, and Jon preens in a way he would deny if pointed out. “How was your day?” 

Martin tells him. He gardened some, read a little, tried his hand at birdwatching with the book he took out from the library. Turns out there isn’t a rich avian variety in rural Scotland, but he enjoyed himself all the same.

“And did you check in with Basira?” It almost sounds offhand.

“Ah, knew I forgot something,” Martin says, switching out the sponge for the steel wool to tackle a particularly crusty stain. “Next time.”

“Yes,” Jon says. “Next time.”

Sometimes they’ll chat while Martin does chores. Sometimes they’ll listen to audio books together. Once or twice they tune in to The Archers, and Martin guffaws at Jon’s scathing commentary, and then they turn their thoughts more softly to Daisy, those last good days when she was kind and she was trying. Most days they’re just quiet, enjoying the silence, side by side. 

“Did you need me for something?” Jon will ask, and Martin will say, “Just the pleasure of your company.” 

There will be a teasing note there, but they’ll both know he means it, and Jon will smile. It is so very nearly perfect. If only Martin could touch him—remember the contours of their fingers overlayed—the warmth of Jon’s face in his hands. Jon was always so much warmer than him. But sitting here in front of the fire, in the quiet, together. Together. That is enough.

Basira is on Martin’s doorstep. She looks… uncomfortable, primarily. She is a woman firmly rooted in the urban, jeans and a sharp leather jacket and a motorcycle sitting pretty over her shoulder. To see her framed against the quaint pastoral landscape is jarring. That was always true, even when she came by every other weekend to help repair the cottage, but then there had been more people, Georgie and Melanie, Martin and Jon, some of the neighbors, and they’d softened Basira’s hard edges. Alone now, it’s painfully obvious how out of place she feels.

“Basira,” Martin says, and knows he sounds surprised. He hopes at least that he sounds pleasantly so. “Wow. Er, come in! It’s good to see you.”

She follows him inside, smiling only a little awkwardly. Then the smile vanishes. “It’s freezing in here,” she says, with blunt disapproval. 

“Ah, yeah, I guess it can get a little chilly. I’ll get the fire going.”

Basira nods, and then says with visible effort, “That would be nice, thanks.” 

Basira stands. Martin bustles. Cleans up old dishes, shoves spare books to the back of the bookcase. Basira continues to stand. It’s horribly awkward, altogether. 

“Place looks good,” Basira says.

Martin’s tongue trips in his hurry to answer. “Only thanks to everyone’s hard work. Couldn’t have managed without all the extra hands. Feel free to sit, if you like.”

“Oh, right. Thanks. Anywhere in particular--”

“Oh, yeah, anywhere’s fine. Can I get you a drink, or something to eat? Tea?”

“I’m alright, thanks.”

“I insist.” Anything to put off this conversation.

When Martin reenters the room, two steaming mugs of tea in hand, Basira is sat stiffly in one of the two armchairs by the fire. The older one: tartan with leather armrests, a bit beat up looking. Martin had picked it up for pocket change from a yard sale in the village. Very retro, Jon had said, a teasing smirk hidden in the corner of his mouth.

“So,” Martin says, aiming for cheerful. He hands Basira her tea. “What brings you around? Not that I’m not always pleased to see you.”

Basira arches an eyebrow, and Martin has to make a conscious effort not to wince. He may have overshot cheerful. Basira looks almost comically out of place, in that chair, with that mug. It’s homemade and hand painted; Martin got it at the same yard sale he got the chair. Basira holds it stiffly.

“Came to see how you were doing, I suppose. Wanted to make sure you weren’t dead or something. You haven’t been checking in.”

“Ah. Sorry about that. I kept meaning to, but with one thing and another I kept putting it off—”

“It’s been two months, Martin.”

Not that long ago that would have been accusing. Now it’s just a stilted attempt at concern. Guilt swells in Martin’s ribcage. Jon’s voice in his head: you should call Basira. 

Martin sighs. “I’m sorry, Basira. Really. I did mean to call, but things have been…” Wonderful. Nearly perfect. He doesn’t say so—she wouldn’t understand.

“It’s been tough on all of us,” says Basira, drawing the wrong conclusions, as expected. “Don’t apologize. We all have our ghosts.”

Martin’s insides freeze up around that word. Ghosts. He clears his throat, glances away now. “And you, how are you holding up? How goes the job hunt?”

Basira blinks, and then she smiles, faintly. Her hands relax around the mug. For a second she almost looks like she belongs. “Pretty well, actually. I’m working with Georgie and Melanie. Have been for a bit.”

That pulls a genuine smile out of Martin in return. “Really? Doing what?”

“Different things. Muscle, mostly. Some research. And they’ve taught me a few camera tricks. Mentioned me in one episode, even though I told them not to.” She rolls her eyes. Martin’s grin gets wider.

“Look at you, a regular jack of all trades. Very cool. Honestly, I wondered if you’d go back to the police.”

“I considered it. But after everything…” She shakes her head. “This is better. It’s been good for me, I think.”

“I’m happy for you.” And he really is.

“Thanks. Mostly I’m glad to be able to watch their backs if they run into anything…real.”

The room seems to close in, get colder. The fire pops and hisses. They both turn to look at it, which makes this part easier. Martin asks, “And have they?”

“Not yet. But it doesn’t hurt to be careful.” She clears her throat and turns back to him, but Martin isn’t ready to stop watching the fire. “Listen. Melanie and Georgie wanted me to tell you that they could use you on the team. As a researcher, mostly. They’d be happy to have you if you decided to move back.”

Martin gets very cold behind the eyes. He can’t feel the warmth from the fire. He can’t feel the warmth from the tea. There’s a book on the bookshelf that he isn’t thinking about. “That’s very kind. I’ll consider it.”

Basira frowns like she knows how hollow the words are. She looks like she’s about to challenge him, but shakes her head at the last second, exhales through her nose. She reaches for her bag with purpose.

“Cool. Time to drink.”

Martin splutters. Suddenly there’s warmth again between his hands, where the mug of tea sits. “Uh. Right. Sorry, I don’t really keep much—”

“I do.”

Basira starts pulling bottle after bottle from her bag, the liquor getting harder as she goes. Martin balks. “You—were you carrying that the whole time—”

“What are you drinking? Wine? Whiskey? Vodka?”

Martin puts up a valiant fight, but Basira is already swigging directly from a clear bottle, so there’s not much for it. It would be in poor form to let her drink alone. The whiskey he accepts burns a rough path down his throat, warming him in a different way than the tea and the fire. A few hard gulps and suddenly they’re both more comfortable. A few gulps more and talking gets easier, warmer—talking about what they’ve been through, about Daisy, about Jon. It’s nice. There are reasons Martin doesn’t drink much, but for once he doesn’t care enough to remember what they are.

“Jon and I tried to listen to the Archers in her memory—”

“God, she loved the Archers, what awful fucking taste—”

“I know, Jon hated it, but he refused to shut it off, he’d pull this absolutely _tortured_ face and he’d grit his teeth like he was about to fight the—the Unknowing or something, and he’d say: _for Daisy.”_

Basira laughs, a full sound. “He was such a drama queen.” Martin laughs too, ignores the _was._

The sound softens, tapers out. Basira stares into her bottle. “I started listening to the Archers too, after everything. Still do. Never miss an episode.”

Martin hums sympathetically. “That’s good.”

Basira doesn’t answer. She swirls her bottle one way, then the other. Sighs through her nose and rubs one eye with a knuckle. She looks bleary, and Martin isn’t convinced it’s all from the alcohol. He leans forward, balances his elbows on his knees and his glass cupped in his hands between them.

“It’s a long trip back to the village, and—no offense—you look like you could use a good night’s sleep. You’re welcome to stay the night.”

“No.” She says it too quickly, and grimaces. “Thanks. But no. It was easier when the others were here, and we were all working, but. This place was still Daisy’s.”

The guilt swells suddenly, compresses Martin’s lungs. At least he still has Jon. Basira will never have Daisy again. He leans forward, tries to catch her eyes. “How are you holding up, really?”

Basira sighs through her nose. Half of her mouth lifts into something ironic. “About as well as you are, I’d guess.”

Martin’s hands tighten around his glass. 

“You still have a room at my place,” Basira continues. “If you get tired of country life.”

Her sincerity is so careful. This isn’t easy for her. Martin knows he should appreciate it. He puts down his cup with an ugly clink—his nails will squeak against the glass if he holds it any tighter—and then he lays his hands flat against his thighs, because without something to hold between them his fingernails are now in danger of puncturing his palms. “That’s very generous, Basira, but I have a life here. I can’t just pick up and move.”

“Why not? You’ve done it before. No one’s hunting you down now. You even have a job lined up.” When Martin glances away, Basira makes an obvious effort to soften her tone and expression. “Jon wouldn’t have wanted you to be all alone up here.”

“I’m not alone.” The words are so sharp they seem to cut Martin’s tongue on the way out. Basira stares at him. Great. Well done, Martin. He fixes his eyes on his hands and says, “The locals are nice. I get on with them.”

“…Right.” She doesn’t press, but she’s still watching. Her eyes are dark and knowing and he avoids them. Detective, Elias used to call her. 

“Are you sure you’re alright to get to the village?” he mutters.

After a long second: “The walk’ll do me good. I can get my bike tomorrow. Besides, if monsters haven’t eaten you yet, they certainly won’t eat me.”

Some of the tension eases. Martin snorts. “Gee, thanks.”

They head to the door, and then he stops her. It takes a few minutes of tipsy fumbling, but eventually he pulls together a travel mug of hot chocolate. “It’s only instant, but it should do the trick to keep you warm until you get to the inn.”

She thanks him with a strange look on her face. Takes the mug out into the dark. Turns around.

“Well. Like I said. Job’s yours.”

“Thanks, Basira. I—” But he doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. “Thanks.”

“Keep in touch, okay?”

“I will,” he says, but he won’t. Somehow they both know he won’t.

Martin wakes from a nightmare about—about so many things. A sky full of winking, blinking, staring stars. An endless empty fog. A flash of silver. 

He turns on the light with shaking hands. Grabs his book off the nightstand. Reads a page that makes him cry, and tosses the book aside. Buries his face in his arms.

“Martin?” From somewhere above him, panicked and pained. “Martin, what’s wrong? Talk to me. Talk to me, please,”

Martin picks up his head, and yes, there he is. There he is. Martin’s breath hitches so hard that his whole body jumps with it.

“Nothing,” he gasps. He can see in Jon’s face that he doesn’t believe him. He shouldn’t. “Does it hurt?”

Jon goes very still. Martin knows he shouldn’t have said it, he knows that, he knows that, but he couldn’t help it. And it’s out there now.

“No,” Jon lies.

Martin closes his eyes to keep from crying again.

“It was just some bad dreams,” he whispers, eventually. “Just some bad dreams. You’re here. Everything’s fine.”

I’m here, he wants Jon to say, but he doesn’t. His hands hover helplessly over Martin’s shoulders, his face. Martin would give anything, anything, to feel their warmth.

Jon won’t say it, so Martin says it again. “You’re here now. Everything’s fine.”

It took six months of dedicated work to repair the cottage. They didn’t have the money to hire professionals, but they did have Basira and Georgie, and Melanie in a lawn chair with a megaphone. Some locals in the village offered to help—the pub owner, the handyman, one particularly self-sufficient school teacher. They worked through the days and grabbed food together in the evenings. Suddenly, bizarrely, Jon and Martin had found themselves neighbors they could almost call friends.

Six months of dedicated work, and one lovely, perfect day to enjoy it, just the two of them. They slept in. They cooked for each other with the donated stove, and had tea by the fire. The kettle was a housewarming gift. They took a walk and admired the countryside, mostly for the pleasure of having a home to return to. At sunset they sat on the porch steps, rebuilt from scratch, and they sat close and murmured softly.

“We could wait a while,” Martin said. He thumbed the corner of Jon’s eye, the thoughtful creases there. “The Beholding is weak, you’ve said so yourself. And you’ve gotten so good at… _eating_ in a less…er, obtrusive way.”

That much was true. After everything, Jon’s powers were severely weakened, but not erased. He still needed to feed. The bright side was that it seemed he no longer needed to feed on terrors so drastic. With practice and Martin’s help, Jon had learned to curb his appetite for knowledge in more subtle ways, thoughtful questions like _how are you today_ and _are you alright_ and _how can I help._ If worse came to worst, they had a backlog of old statements packed away just in case.

Jon hummed. He took a long slow look at all of it, everything, the cottage and the country and the sunset. His gaze was intense, like it always was, like every sight was the last sight, and he had to carve it into his memory. This time it was true. The realization settled in Martin’s bones before Jon even answered.

“No,” he said, at last, like Martin knew he would. “I’m ready for it to be over. This is enough.” He looked at Martin then, and there was peace in his expression. “Thank you, Martin.”

Maybe he read Martin’s worries, because he scooted closer in the way Martin learned meant he wanted an arm around his shoulders. Martin pulled him close.

“It’ll be alright,” Jon said, soft and sure, settling against Martin’s side. “I survived the apocalypse. I survived the Beholding. I’ll survive this.”

And he did, though it was a near thing. There was so much blood, but they were familiar with blood. They had shaking hands held tightly. They had Martin’s eyes for both of them. They had their friends, grim but supportive. The lie was easy and no one questioned it: finishing touches on the cottage, a careless mistake, a sharp object out of place. 

After a quick trip to the hospital and a long rehabilitation—though not as long as any of the doctors thought—they were home again, together. And it wasn’t easy. Of course it wasn’t easy. But it was perfect. 

Martin tries not to be bitter about it now. 

Martin loses track of the days since Basira’s visit. Jon doesn’t ask about her anymore. 

He’s reading Jon his poetry, and there’s rain on the window and fire in the fireplace, and there’s Jon’s head, leaning just so that he could almost be resting against Martin’s shoulder. It’s so close to perfect.

“That’s all I’ve got there,” Martin sighs. He had to stop in an awkward place, didn’t know how to finish the stanza. Jon hums, sounding drowsy.

“Anything else you’re working on?”

“That’s it for now.”

“An old one, then.”

Martin chuckles. “There are better poets. Why don’t we read one of them?”

“I don’t want to read one of them,” Jon says, huffily.

“Didn’t you say you couldn’t stand reading anyone’s style more than once?”

“Yes, well, I also said I don’t much care for poetry in general, so no thank you to your poet laureates.” Jon coughs into a fist. Scowls, though not convincingly. “And you’re not just anyone, so.”

Martin smiles, opens his mouth to concede, but Jon’s face changes, twists with discomfort, and the words dry up in Martin’s throat. He can’t let it go, now that he brought it up once. Now that the seal is broken. It bubbles up in the back of his throat, like bile, at all the wrong moments. 

Before he can stop himself: “What does it feel like?”

“I,” Jon splutters, sits up and drifts back. “What? What does—what feel like?” But he knows what. Of course he does.

“Being here. Being— _stuck_ here. Because of me. You always say it’s fine. That you’re alright. What does it feel like, really?”

“Martin,” says Jon. There’s a warning in his voice, and a sadness. “Not this again.”

“Tell me.”

Jon turns away from him, runs a hand through his hair in helpless irritation. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Don’t play daft. Why are you looking to hurt yourself?”

“Because I’m hurting you.” He says it far too sharply. Jon’s shoulders hitch, and Martin’s heart breaks. He says, much softer, “And you shouldn’t have to suffer alone.”

“I’m alright, Martin. Truly.” He hunches in on himself. Clutches at his arms. Martin would reach out and hold him if he could. There’s nothing he wouldn’t give.

“Jon,” he says, and doesn’t care that his voice breaks. “Please.”

For a long moment, Martin doesn’t think he’s going to. The tension in Jon winds tighter, and tighter, and then all at once his edges soften. He sighs once. Turns around again, so that Martin can see his expression: defeated.

“Alright,” he sighs. “Alright.” And he takes a breath that he doesn’t need. 

“It…hurts. To be here.” A bitter little sound slips out of him, almost a laugh. “I thought I understood what Gerry meant, but really, you don’t understand until it’s happening to you.” 

Martin gets cold all over, too cold even to shiver. He doesn’t feel his lips move when he says, “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Jon says nothing, which is the kinder thing. There’s only one thing that will ease this for him, and Martin can’t bear to consider it.

“Would you read me some poetry?” Jon says, switching subject without tact, because he’s kind and Martin loves him so. “It doesn’t have to be yours. Whoever you want.”

Martin stares at him, and then he says _sure,_ and wipes at his eyes. Jon can’t see it but it feels as though he’s watching anyway. “I’ll warn you, though, I’ve been back on a Keats kick recently.”

 _“Keats.”_

Never has a word been said so disdainfully, and Martin laughs, damp but sincere. He goes to the bookshelf and pulls out the right volume, and he ignores the other one, the one he put away just before Jon sat down with him. But he can’t let it go. He can’t let it go.

Martin opens the door, and his tongue sours in his mouth. “Oh. You.” 

Georgie raises an eyebrow. “Me.”

She’s wearing a stylish flannel and sensible boots. She fits here better than Basira did, but then, Georgie Barker could probably fit in anywhere. She’s that sort of person. Adaptable. Likeable.

They never did get on, quite, Martin and Georgie. They snipped at each other just a little too often to be friendly. Rolled their eyes just a few times too many. It struck all parties as fairly odd—Melanie and Jon both swore they should have made fast friends. Maybe they should have. Maybe they would have, if circumstances were different. Martin never told Jon about his less than pleasant first impression of Georgie in the Archives. He’s not sure if Georgie ever told Melanie. Even so, they’re perfectly capable of being civil. And after all the work they’d done on the cottage together, Martin can honestly say that Georgie makes for fine company. She’s cheerful and compassionate and unafraid. They’ll never be friends—in this understanding they have a weird sort of camaraderie—but he is big enough to admit that Georgie is an objectively charming person. The reception he’s just given her is beneath him.

He tries for a smile. “Come on in, Georgie. I’ll put the kettle on.”

Georgie declines waiting in the living room while Martin prepares the tea, and so instead she stands with him in the kitchen, leaning her hip on the counter like Jon did. Does.

After a few failed attempts at small talk, Martin sighs. “Why are you here, Georgie?”

“Basira called me.”

Of course she did. He shouldn’t be surprised. “Basira worries too much. She thinks there are problems where there aren’t. I mean, I can’t blame her for being paranoid, after everything. But I’m fine, really.”

Georgie is not to be put off. Martin puts a mug in her hands without looking at her. 

“I spoke to some of the locals. They were worried about you too.”

“Well, after what happened.” He doesn’t add anything to that. Attends to his own cup of tea instead. Georgie follows him into the living room.

“I know we’re not close,” Georgie says at his back. “I like to think that means we can at least be honest with each other. I care about you, Martin, and you’re worrying me too. That’s why I’m here.”

Georgie’s straightforward, uncomplicated concern. It sets his teeth on edge. He turns to face her.

Georgie goes very still, all at once. It is not a natural stillness. There’s a sudden tension in her body, in her face, in her wide eyes, waiting to be acted upon. She’s not looking at him. Martin follows her gaze, knowing where it will land. There’s a book on the coffee table. 

“What is that?”

It’s not fear in her face. Of course it’s not. It’s anger.

“What the hell is that, Martin?”

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. It’s almost a relief.

Her face twists into disgust, and she reaches for the book. Martin grabs it first, tucks it under his arm. They stand, facing each other. Georgie’s shoulders are heaving slightly. Martin—Martin’s shoulders aren’t. His breathing evens, slows.

“Give it to me.”

Martin doesn’t say anything.

 _“Give it to me,_ Martin.”

“I think it’s about time you leave. It’s getting late, you don’t want to be on these roads in the dark.” He hears himself say it and he doesn’t recognize his voice. No, he does. He thinks of Peter. He can’t find the horror he knows he’s feeling.

“You’re too smart to do this,” Georgie says, and her voice is almost as cold as his. “Because you know that if you do, or if you already _did,_ Basira and I would hunt you down.”

She steps closer when he doesn’t answer, and perhaps a touch of desperation enters her face. 

“Jon is dead, Martin. For god's sake, let him stay that way. He deserves that much.”

“Please leave, Georgie. I’d like to be alone just now.”

And then he is. He is elsewhere.

Elsewhere is still the cottage, but Georgie is gone, and the fire is out. The lights are off. There is no sunlight. Everything is silent.

The book is still tucked under his arm. He pulls it out and looks at it, feels the terrible weight of it in his hands, and then he clutches it to his chest and tries to cry. But he is too lonely.

After the world ended, and then after it didn’t, Martin and Jon took a walk.

The last day of summer had come and gone two weeks earlier. Since then it had been a seemingly endless deluge of wet and muck and spongy cold, during which Jon and Martin holed up in the cottage and in turns grumbled about the weather (Jon) or waxed romantic about it (Martin). They stoked the fire and they draped the afghan around their shoulders, and they ventured into the storm as little as possible. 

When the storm finally broke, Martin awoke to a sky washed into clean, clear colors. He tied Jon’s tie and pulled him out by the hand, and marveled at how his expression shifted from peeved to wondering, how he filled his lungs with rain-clean air and tilted his ear to birdsong, how he tipped his face to the sun. He turned to Martin then, as though he was realizing all at once that they were both alive, and that they were here, together. How familiar. Martin loved him so much his heart broke.

When he suggested a stroll down to the village, Jon squeezed his hand and hardly even grumbled. 

They took their time. Martin described the scenery, and Jon provided dry witticisms to Martin’s observations. Neighbors said hello to them once they got to town. And then a man approached.

His name was Jordan. He wasn’t an avatar. He wasn’t a monster. He was just a man, on holiday with his sister. He’d been depressed and anxious for two years, and she thought a change of scenery would do him some good. On the big backpacking trip they’d been planning for months, they took a detour to a quaint little Scottish village, and got turned around. She was the more averse to asking for directions between them, and he, laughing, feeling better than he had in ages, said he would bite the bullet. He approached a couple on a stroll—a friendly looking couple, hands clasped and heads bent close, one with glasses and cane. He stuck an arm out and he called, “’Lo, there! Excuse me! D’you have a moment?”

Jon turned first. 

“Jordan Fischer,” Jon said, because that was the young man’s name, and Jon had dreamt about him long ago. For nights upon nights upon nights he watched Jordan Fischer’s futile attempts to dig his way out of the crawl space beneath his house; he’d gotten trapped there trying to find the source of a leak, and couldn’t find his way back out again. All he had to dig with were his fingers and a butterfly knife that his sister gave him when he turned sixteen. He kept it on him always, as a good luck charm, and no matter what anyone said he was convinced it was the only thing that saved him from that crushing darkness. In the dreams where Jon watched him, he used it to dig, as he had in real life. In the dreams he used it to slash uselessly at the man watching him suffocate slowly, torturously, that terrible man, always watching.

Martin watched both of their faces change, hollow out, go haunted. And then he watched the young man lurch forward, and by the time the harsh flash of silver registered in his mind, and by the time he reached for that cold space behind his eyes that never went away, not completely, and by the time he yanked, Jon was on the ground, and his throat was open.

The frightened young man was gone. The world was gone. The street was empty, and there was only Martin, and there was Jon, going cold in his arms, and there was the knife, bloody, mere feet away. 

Martin was surprised when he reentered the world to find that Georgie had left. He’d expected her to be waiting, with a gun or a bat, and probably Basira for backup. But he knows they won’t be gone for long, and they aren’t. A week later, the sound of Basira’s bike roars down the lane. Martin was expecting it, and so he is calm when he hides the book, and he’s calm when he puts on the kettle, and he’s calm when he opens the door.

On the other side is Melanie King. Martin did not expect that.

“Heyo, Blackwood. It’s been a minute.”

“I. You. Melanie,” says Martin, eloquently. “Did you drive here?”

The flat reflection of Melanie’s glasses is fatally unimpressed. Over her shoulder Basira kicks the bike to life and shreds toward town without a backward glance. Martin is perhaps the stupidest person on the planet. “Ah. Of course. Sorry.”

“You letting me in or what?”

Manners hardwired into his brain kick on. He lets Melanie in. The kettle starts to whistle but Melanie orders, “Sit,” and Martin sits. The layout of the cottage is the same since she was here last. In the kitchen there is the competent tapping of a cane, the careful sound of rummaging, and in a few minutes Melanie is in front of him again, two mugs in hand. He tries to remember the last time someone made him tea.

“Are you here to kill me, Melanie?” Martin asks, when some of the dumbfounded shock begins to fade. She doesn’t seem to be carrying any weapons, but she was always fond of the discreet sort of knives one could hide on their person. Or maybe she’ll just bludgeon him to death with her cane, he’s sure she could do it.

Melanie quirks a brow over the dark rim of her glasses. “Do you want me to kill you?”

Martin blinks several times. “No,” he says, not convincingly, but Melanie takes him at his word. Her other brow pointedly joins the first, as if to say _then that’s that._ She takes a sip of her tea and pulls a face. 

“Ugh, I should’ve just let you do it. You’ve always made the best tea, hands down.”

“Melanie,” Martin starts again, and Melanie sighs so heavily that Martin just—stops, affronted.

Melanie is frank about it. “Have you been vanishing people into the Lonely?”

“No, but—”

“Have you been compelling trauma from bystanders?”

“No, but that’s—”

“That’s fucking that, then. Are we still talking about this?”

She leans back, slams her boots on the coffee table, and takes another dainty sip of tea. Martin splutters at her for another ten seconds or so, and then he gives up, and gestures weakly to her mug. 

“Would you like a fresh cup?”

 _“Christ,_ please.”

She follows him into the kitchen, asking for a play by play so she can pinpoint where she went wrong. It was the steeping, mostly. Ever competitive, she vows to practice her tea-making skills and then come back and destroy him.

They stand in the kitchen and the conversation just…goes on, like a normal conversation does. Work. Georgie. They play cards with a special deck that Melanie brought, and Melanie wipes the floor with him every hand. Martin brings her to the garden, where she swears she can identify every flower by smell, and she does. They take a walk. Eat lunch in the village. Martin worries that they’ll run into Basira, or that an old acquaintance will come up and say _I haven’t seen you in so long, how have you been holding up?_

No one does, and eventually he forgets to be nervous. They head back to the cottage. They talk and keep talking. Mundane things all, and something cold in Martin’s bones begins to thaw.

It’s dark out when Melanie’s phone goes off. Basira, on her way in ten minutes. Martin helps Melanie get her things together and they go wait on the porch with afghans and fresh cups of tea. 

Melanie says, “Ooh, tell me what the stars look like, could barely see the fuckers in London,” and Martin is—transported, is the only word, to a hundred other nights and a hundred other days, and Jon at his side, saying tell me about the sky or tell me about the cows or tell me about the weather or the country or your day. Jon, warm beside him. Alive.

Melanie tilts her head. “Martin?”

“Why aren’t you trying to kill me, Melanie?” Maybe he means for it to sound demanding. He just sounds weary. “Georgie said she and Basira would come for me—”

“Believe me, I know what Georgie said. She’s pissed as hell at me for stopping her, so thanks for that.”

He doesn’t have the patience in him for this. He’s tired. He’s ready for it to be over. “Look, I’m sorry you’re fighting, but I didn’t ask you to protect me. I spent enough of my life being sheltered by Jon, I don’t need—”

“Oh my god, shut up! Has anyone ever told you you’re really insecure about like, that specifically? I didn’t stop them because I thought you couldn’t. I stopped them because I knew you _wouldn’t.”_

Martin splutters, and Melanie does not wait for him to come up with a lie.

“You really want to know why I won’t let them kill you? Fine. First of all, that’s obviously what you want, and I live to defy expectations. Second, I don’t think that what you need is another lecture. You know better than anyone how bad you fucked up, you don’t need us to tell you. All the shit you’ve been through, the fucking purée grief makes of our brains—it’s a bigger surprise to me that you didn’t do worse. You know what I think you need? A goddamn friend. So are you going to let me be your friend or what?”

“I—”

“Third, Jon may have been the biggest ass I knew, but I cared about him too. And maybe I didn’t know him as well as you or Georgie, but I knew him well enough to know that he’d have done anything for you. Including go along with this dumbfuck stunt of yours. Answer me this: has he ever once asked you to free him?” 

He hasn’t, and Melanie knows it. Martin says the only thing he can find in himself to say. “I’m hurting him.”

“Obviously.” She doesn’t shy away from it. She doesn’t sound unkind, either. “I’m not going to pretend this isn’t fucked up beyond belief. But if Jon isn’t going to complain, that’s his choice. And I’m going to respect that choice, no matter how bad you want me to kill you.” 

It only takes two precise taps of her cane to find the steps, and once she does she sits down on them, elbows on knees. She sighs with feeling. Her body slouches.

“So here’s what it comes down to, Marto. Jon isn’t going to get on you to fix it. And I’m not going to get on you to fix it. And Georgie and Basira aren’t going to get on you to fix it, because I won’t let them. The only thing killing you right now is your own conscience, and you know what to do about that. You and only you.”

Martin stares down at her, her hoodie and her denim jacket, her cropped hair and her short fingernails, her glasses and the scars that sometimes peek out beneath them. Her hands are rough and just as at home around a knife as they are around a camera. She gets so tired, sometimes, like the echoes of the Slaughter rob her of all her fire and her fight, but she takes a deep breath and she stands back up, every time. She’s a terribly kind person. He never once appreciated that, did he?

He sinks to the steps beside her. He puts his mug down.

“Thanks for being my friend, Melanie,” he says.

Melanie pauses, and then snorts. She throws a perfectly aimed punch at his shoulder. “Don’t thank me yet. In two weeks I’m going to make you such a mean cuppa that you’ll quit tea forever.”

“Well, I doubt that, but good luck to you anyway.”

“By then you better have reconnected to society. Play your pity card, there have to be job offers for a grieving widow, even in a no horse town like this.”

“Charming.”

“And practice your poker face in the mirror, you play cards for shit.”

“What—how the hell would you know what my—”

“I don’t need my eyes to read you, Blackwood, _that’s_ how shit you are at cards.”

“Excuse you, if I could play Peter Lukas _and_ Elias then my poker face can’t be _that_ shit, can it?” 

That's what Martin means to say. What comes out instead is, “I don’t think I’m ready.” 

He doesn’t mean to say it. His eyes are hot, and his voice sounds strange in his own ears, and then Melanie is hugging him.

It’s a bit clumsy, and awkward, with how she has to twist her body to hold him, but there’s strength in her wiry arms. She grips him tight, and she’s warm. 

“You’re never gonna be ready, Blackwood,” she says, very gently. “You just have to be brave enough to do it anyway. He’ll be with you the whole time, yeah?”

She’s warm. She’s so warm.

Far down the lane, Basira’s bike blinks into view. 

_The voice is like a death knell. He cannot see it but he can hear it, like some great beast of prey, coming for him in the dark. The bite of steel is like teeth rending. There is pain and there is fear, and there are several final thoughts._

_The first, dark and rich like blood: I deserve this._

_The second: it is a terrible thing to die cold and alone in the dark._

_The third, as a hand finds his hand, and a voice finds his ear, terrified and beloved, this last thought: I am not alone. I am not alone, because you are with me._

_And so, Jonathan Sims ends._

Martin is sitting on the porch. Beside him there is a book, and there is a lighter, and then there is Jon.

Martin still isn’t quite sure how it works. Jon is eyeless, and he moves as though he can’t see, and yet he always seems to know where he is. He lowers himself to the steps gingerly. 

For a while they just sit together. The sky, pale with pre-dawn, is washed into clean, clear colors. It is so close to perfect.

“Are you sure about this?”

“No,” Martin says, and he laughs, and he sobs. “I should have done it a long time ago.” 

Jon is quiet. He scoots closer, and Martin, indulging them both, lifts an arm around his shoulders in a half-embrace that neither of them can feel. There’s a memory-echo of warmth, how it felt to tuck Jon against his side, safe, close. 

“You know, I—still can’t believe I’ve done it, some days. It’s like a dream. Or a nightmare. I don’t really… Past a certain point I can’t remember how it happened. What I did.” He laughs again, softer, and lowers his arm. “You must hate me for what I did to you.”

“I don’t. Martin, listen to me.” Jon is urgent. “I may only be a shade of what I once was, but I’m enough of Jonathan Sims to know that I could never hate you. You don’t have to do this. If you need me to stay, I’ll stay.”

Martin’s breath shudders in his chest. It hurts to keep his eyes open. But there’s so little time left to just…look at him. His scars, the gray in his hair. He’s wearing the clothes he died in. Tie, sweater, jacket, tweed. Academic. He looked this way when they first began working together. His appearance was so careful, so well taken care of, and still by noon he would be disheveled and exhausted, without fail. It was endearing. As the years went by, survival took precedence, and fashion became just another luxury they didn’t know they’d taken for granted. Whatever they had on hand. Anything warm, or sturdy. And then the world ended, and then it didn’t, and they pieced their lives and the cottage and their clothes back together, their hobbies and easy comforts—Martin remembers watching it strike Jon for the first time. How he stilled while tying his tie: this stunning realization that he could afford to look and be exactly as he wanted to. His hands started to shake, and Martin went over and held him for long minutes, and then he tied the tie himself. Even after they put out his eyes and Jon had adapted to everyday tasks, Martin still tied his tie, every day. Every day.

He says, very quickly, “I got a job at the library.”

Jon looks taken aback. “Oh. That’s, ah. That’s wonderful.” It almost sounds like a question.

“They said I was _startlingly overqualified.”_

“Well, you are that.”

“And I’ve been talking to Melanie a lot. And I signed up for some online university courses. I’m trying to spend more time out of the house. I’ve been looking at some shelters for a dog.”

“That’s wonderful.” This time it’s sincere.

“I’m trying to say that I’m—” His throat tries to close. “I’m going to be okay. After you’re gone, I’ll be alright. I promise. You can rest.”

Oh. How Jon— _looks_ at Martin then. Surprise, and then, and then. There is such peace in his expression. “Thank you, Martin.”

This is enough. This is enough.

It takes more work than he thought to tear out the page, as though the book does not wish to relinquish him. But Martin keeps pulling, prying, stitch by stitch, until it finally comes away in his fingers, frail and too soft, barely fluttering in the breeze. His own shaky scrawl stares back up at him.

He flicks the lighter. The flame gutters twice—his hand is trembling too violently. His whole body is trembling. Is it fear or is it cold? Is the rolling mist due to the early morning or something else? When this is done, when it’s finally over, what will be left? Nothing but him, and an empty house, and the empty spaces left by the only person who ever loved him.

“You are not alone,” Jon says. His hand covers Martin’s, and in the same instant dawn breaks, and falls gently across the steps, across their overlapped fingers. The mist is dispelled. “You are so loved. You are not alone, Martin.”

Not alone. He is not alone.

Long after it’s done, Martin sits there. The sun is warm on his cheek and the back of his hand, like the touch of someone dear, someone loved.

**Author's Note:**

> Violence; major character death; canon typical spookiness


End file.
